CoronaWatch 2019 - 2023

[Neon Ignition]

UK Covid inquiry: government accused of giving ‘very little’ advance thought to lockdown and being too focused on flu – live (theguardian.com)
The Department of the Obvious strikes again as it's found the UK didn't advance plan for pandemics

The planning for Brexit and No Deal is cited as possibly being a reason planning for a pandemic wasn't as strong as it could be - nonsense, pandemics are a risk at any given time and planning should have been in place at any stage for decades. It's a successive governments failure from both sides

I predict it will find no issue with lockdowns in of themselves - they were clearly the right decision. However the devil will lie with the detail as they were handled sloppily by lifting too quickly resulting the UK having such an unforgivably high death rate, and also an absence of contingencies to maintain sectors

[Nu-Eclipse]

The planning for Brexit and No Deal is cited as possibly being a reason planning for a pandemic wasn't as strong as it could be - nonsense, pandemics are a risk at any given time and planning should have been in place at any stage for decades. It's a successive governments failure from both sides.

"Both sides."

Hilarious.

13 years of Tory governance and somehow Labour are still blamed.

It would never, ever, EVER be worded the other way around if we were contextualising this in 13 years of a Labour government. Labour would be made to own it fully.

[QualityChimp]

Good, concise BBC Explainer about what is being investigated:
Covid inquiry: What is it investigating and how will it work?

Also:
A scheduled pandemic response exercise in 2019 was postponed to free up 56 out of 94 staff for Brexit work and the Government ignored a lot of the findings of the 2016 Exercise Cygnus pandemic training.

[Neon Ignition]

Any Government of any party affiliation at any time should have planning in place for a pandemic event, it's a national emergency scenario so the inability to pull up a prior plan highlights how both parties failed historically to plan for such a situation. That being said though, in the scenario of making it up as you go along I have zero doubt the Tories handled it worse than Labour would have

[gunrock]

Any Government of any party affiliation at any time should have planning in place for a pandemic event, it's a national emergency scenario so the inability to pull up a prior plan highlights how both parties failed historically to plan for such a situation. That being said though, in the scenario of making it up as you go along I have zero doubt the Tories handled it worse than Labour would have

This is why Civil Servants should have this planned so it falls outside the remit of party-politics. There should be a council that is attended by a cross party collection of serving MPs that can offer suggestion and be informed with what is in place but the senior civil servants run the show.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Any Government of any party affiliation at any time should have planning in place for a pandemic event, it's a national emergency scenario so the inability to pull up a prior plan highlights how both parties failed historically to plan for such a situation. That being said though, in the scenario of making it up as you go along I have zero doubt the Tories handled it worse than Labour would have

Disingenuous and you know it is.

The Tories have been in power well over a decade. They've tripled down on managed decline of the NHS and any other protective planning for pandemics.

Labour would take all of the blame if they were presiding for the last decade-plus.

This is on the Tories. Full stop.

[Neon Ignition]

I honestly don't think it's excusable for Labour to not have had a contingency plan for a pandemic scenario in the 2000's

Or the Tories in the 80's and 90's etc

Or for any number of other emergency national threat scenario's. It's incredibly concerning that none of them ever did, it's not an anti-Labour thing. There have been disease and flu related outbreaks before and not that far apart, though lower in number they were very clear highlights of the risks at play in a world where international travel is so common spread.

I suspect Gunrock is right, that strategy around national threats relating to non-weapon outbreaks should largely defer away from politics led decision making - at least in terms of planning and strategy because clearly MP's are unfit for the task.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I honestly don't think it's excusable for Labour to not have had a contingency plan for a pandemic scenario in the 2000's

Or the Tories in the 80's and 90's etc

Or for any number of other emergency national threat scenario's. It's incredibly concerning that none of them ever did, it's not an anti-Labour thing. There have been disease and flu related outbreaks before and not that far apart, though lower in number they were very clear highlights of the risks at play in a world where international travel is so common spread.

I never said it was an anti-Labour thing, but part-blaming Labour when they haven't been in power for 13 years simply doesn't work here. It just doesn't.

Pound-for-pound, as much as they weren't perfect with it all of the time, far more money was spent on the NHS and general healthcare in the UK during the Blair/Brown years than it has been under the Tories in the last decade-plus.

The disingenuity here simply doesn't stand up at all when trying to include Labour in a blame-game that you and everybody else parroting it simply never would for the Tories if roles had been reversed. Nothing is ever their fault - it's always because of Labour from XYZ years ago. Funny how that line of logic is never used in reverse to account for Thatcher's fckry in the 1980s with high unemployment and the miners, etc

It's down to the Conservatives. Sorry, it's that simple.

[Neon Ignition]

It would be exactly the same if their roles were reversed. It's a lack of preventative planning regardless of who has been in charge of the country. Every Government should have emergency plans for major events in place covering a range of scenarios including a pandemic. Spending more than the Tories etc on the NHS is great but it's also irrelevant to the single point of them contingency planning. Global handling of the pandemic showed that it's far from uncommon either, so many parties and Governments had failed to take the possibility of a pandemic outbreak seriously enough to have planned suitably for the scenario. The Tories may have been in power since 2010 but contingency planning for public health crisis' shouldn't be a post-2010 concern, its clearly a gap in responsibilities dating back decades.

[Nu-Eclipse]

No it wouldn't be the same.

It's never, ever been the same. The Tories are never made to own their past fcuk ups and we all know that so stop being disingenuous.

The managed decline of the NHS (literally baked into their ideological cake) and the UK response to COVID is solely down to the Conservatives (I love the way that you literally ignore that they had THIRTEEN years to prepare and didn't!!) - and no amount of trying to spin it changes that. It just doesn't.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Spending more than the Tories etc on the NHS is great but it's also irrelevant to the single point of them contingency planning.

So Labour putting in infrastructure with said money spent on NHS - infrastructure that is then deliberately made to be declined to the point of not being fit for purpose by the Tories when they get into power - is irrelevant to helping with national healthcare and said contingencies for it such as, y'know, being able to effectively respond to pandemics??

Sorry, that's laughable to the point of ridiculous. It's also the type of logic gymnastics that Tories try every fckn day.

[Neon Ignition]

It is because a pandemic scenario is not solely an NHS matter.

Essentially, it's a simple point - Whether you think it is acceptable that prior to the 2019 COVID outbreak no Government planned for the possibility?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Essentially, it's a simple point - Whether you think it is acceptable that prior to the 2019 COVID outbreak no Government planned for the possibility?

It's very simple indeed: The Tories have been in charge for thirteen years and managed decline of the infrastructure that stopped the UK being able to respond to COVID properly and left the UK unable to properly care for and/or treat nearly ¼ million people - a number that could've been way, way less. A pandemic scenario is not solely an NHS matter but as we have clearly seen, the NHS matters in a pandemic scenario. Pretty basic logic if you stop trying to pretend that it doesn't. The two are not mutually exclusive.

You're the only one on here trying to pass the buck and blame with a sh1t strawman argument when everybody else knows that it's the fault of the Tories.

[Neon Ignition]

I haven't attempted to take any blame away from the Tories handling of the pandemic at all. It happened on their watch and how it all panned out and the aggravating issues of them hacking away at the NHS infrastructure and funding is entirely on them.

The point has always been solely on whether prior Governments should have planned for the possibility of the pandemic also, apparently you think it's fine that the didn't. I'm not of the same view, that's really all there is to it.

[Yakumo]

Well, it finally got me. The first time to catch covid hit me on Wednesday.
Woke up in the morning feeling fine. By 10am my voice was going, by lunch I was heating up. At 3pm, took my temperature only to find out it was 38.9. So off home I went.
Wednesday was a bitch as I was so hot but felt cold with a banging headache. On Thursday morning I go to the clinic expecting to be told I have the flu. Nope, bloody covid!
Got some medicine which took away the headache and fever but this morning the bloody sore throat and runny nose have kicked in.
Funny thing is, I can still smell and taste just fine. Obviously these new covid veriations are not as strong at the original. But man, it still sucks!